Chinese social media see red over explicit college exam questions

An exam paper that was reportedly from Beihai College of Art and Design included the question "What is the advantage of having Aids?".

PHOTO: Weibo

BEIJING - A Chinese college has been slammed for its explicit and irrelevant questions in an examination paper.

Among the questions were: "Have you had sex with the opposite sex?", "What is the advantage of having Aids?" and "Why are people playing video games all day foolish?"

The exam paper was reportedly from Beihai College of Art and Design in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the questions were said to be set by the college's dean, according to a guancha.cn report on Sunday (Jan 20).

They were exam questions for the introductory course on Mao Zedong Theory and Socialism Theory with Chinese Characteristics, reported nationalist tabloid Global Times.

Screenshots of the exam paper with the questions were posted online and they went viral over the weekend on Chinese social media, sparking heated discussions, said Global Times.

A Sina Weibo user, qimengqian, posted this comment: "These questions dig into students' privacy under the guise of a test, which is abnormal."

Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging platform.

Weighing in on the saga, a Chinese literature professor from Peking University said that exam questions should be relevant to the course that students are taking, Global Times reported.

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The tabloid added that Beihai College of Art and Design could not be reached for comment by press time, and that local police have not responded to the issue.

It was apparently not the first time that the college had set such explicit exam questions, said guancha.cn, quoting anonymous sources.

According to screenshots of past exam papers provided by the sources, previous questions included: "Do girls know that all men care about are female bodies?" and "Will women over 40 be sexually assaulted?"

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.